


Pax

by osprey_archer



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soon after Lucius arrives at Castellum, he and Hilarion are trapped away from the fort by a fog. They take the opportunity to take each other's measure. </p><p>Or: how Lucius got his wolfskin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pax

**Author's Note:**

  * For [riventhorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/gifts).



> Thank you to carmarthen and sineala for taking a look at this!

“It’s no use,” said Hilarion. Lacking any vertical surface to lean on, he draped himself full-length in the heather next to a broad squat rock. “We won’t be able to get back till the mist burns off, and it won’t till morning.” 

Lucius, still on his horse, looked with dismay into the dusk-tinged fog. It was so thick that Hilarion, though he lay only a few feet away on the ground, looked indistinct and ghost-like, and the inability to see anything made Lucius feel ill and anxious. “But we’re supposed to report back,” said Lucius. “We’ll be late.”

“Mmm, yes,” said Hilarion, folding his long arms behind his head as a pillow.

His unconcern baffled Lucius. “But Commander Gavros will - ”

“Gavros knows about the mists,” interrupted Hilarion. “It’s better to dig in and wait them out than go blundering about and get hopelessly lost.” 

Lucius looked dismally at the purpling fog. Hilarion was right: they would only get turned around if they tried to continue back to Castellum.

Lucius’s former commander still would have blamed them for getting back late, but then, he took any excuse to punish his men and his officers. Perhaps this too was different with the Frontier Wolves. So many things seemed to be.

Lucius dismounted. His horse snorted and shook her head, as if to say _finally_.

“This last summer, before you arrived, Bericus and I tried to find our way back to Castellum through a mist worse than this,” Hilarion said. “Didn’t find our bearings for three days, and accidentally killed a stag in the meantime. A splendid rack of antlers that stag had. Wider than your outstretched arms. But the horses were too tired to carry it back to Castellum, more’s the pity.” 

He rolled his head to look at Lucius, as if he expected Lucius to contribute a comment. Lucius felt a sinking in his stomach. He knew he was useless at Hilarion’s sort of banter. He had met men like Hilarion before, and he could not resent their careless high spirits; they meant no harm by their teasing. But he dreaded it anyway. 

Hilarion was beginning to look impatient, one foot perched on his other knee and kicking at the air. Lucius cast about for something to say, and asked, “How did you kill the stag?”

“Ah,” said Hilarion, laughter in his voice. “On the third day we got so hungry that Bericus shot an arrow into the mists, and just happened to hit the stag right between the eyes.”

“But what a waste of arrows,” said Lucius. “And what if he’d hit a tribesman?”

“Now why didn’t we think of that,” said Hilarion, his brows drawing together in mock worry; and then he began to laugh, and suddenly Lucius understood. There had been no stag; Hilarion had been spinning a tale and now was laughing at Lucius’s foolishness in believing it. 

Lucius turned his attention to his horse, stiff-backed and flushed. He was embarrassed, not angry; but though he did not know it, he looked the picture of an arrogant young officer who disapproved the levity of the Frontier Wolves: the sort who needed schooling in the pack’s ways. 

Hilarion broke off a few wilting heather blossoms and tossed them at Lucius’s legs. Lucius looked over, shoulders drawn up. “So tell me,” drawled Hilarion. “How did such an upstanding officer as yourself end up among us, the scum and scrapings of the empire?” 

Lucius’s stomach clenched. It was not a story he wanted to tell - and certainly not to Hilarion, who made a joke of everything. It was not that exile here was so terrible: indeed, the Wolves were more welcoming than his last post. But the exiling itself - the memory of that was still too raw for Lucius to make a funny story of it. 

Probably Hilarion had made a funny story of his own exile the moment he left his last fort. 

“My last commander sent me here,” Lucius said stiffly. But a sudden inspiration struck him, and he added, “I was halfway up the road before I realized he meant it as a joke.” 

Hilarion stared at him a moment, and then began to laugh again, quite as freely as he had laughed at his own story, and Lucius found himself smiling back. It was good to share a joke. 

Hilarion sat up. Graceful as he was lying or leaning, his lanky limbs stuck out at odd angles when he sat. “We had better start a fire before it’s full dark,” he said, brushing off the top of the flat rock; and indeed, the mist had darkened to blue. 

“Won’t a fire call down the tribes on us?” Lucius asked.

“Na, na. They don’t venture out in this mist. It’s the wolves we must worry about. They don’t mind fog, navigating by nose as they do.”

The wolves. Lucius glanced at Hilarion’s wolfskin cloak, its vast jaw gaping over Hilarion’s face. The hackles prickled on Lucius’s neck at the thought of such beasts sneaking up on them at night. “But the fire will keep the wolves away,” Lucius said. 

“Oh yes,” said Hilarion; and he soon had a fire crackling on the rock. Lucius sat across from him, drawing a barley bannock from his pack and resting it on the stone to warm. 

Hilarion glanced over, but did not get out his own supper. “You’ll be hungry,” Lucius said.

“I’ll dine on the beauty of - ” Hilarion paused, looking up into the thick mist. “Well, not the stars, tonight. The scent of the last heather flowers, I suppose.” And he drew a branch of fading purplish flowers to his face and sniffed ostentatiously. “Delicious.”

Lucius broke his bannock in half and moved half of it to Hilarion’s side of the rock. Hilarion looked at it a long moment, then picked it up, looking at Lucius all the while. His steady regard made Lucius uncomfortable, and he turned his own eyes away. The horses, only a few feet away, looking like ghosts in the mist. 

Hilarion said, “So you aren’t going to lecture me about how I’m supposed to carry food.”

Lucius was puzzled. “Why would I?”

Another one of Hilarion’s mocking grins split his face. “Why indeed? I’ve never found that lecturing does any good. But I find upstanding young officers usually do it anyway.” He broke off a piece of bannock and ate it, chewing thoughtfully, then swiftly unclasped the brooch on his wolfskin cloak. “I’ll take first watch,” Hilarion announced, settling the body-warm cloak around Lucius’s shoulders. Lucius had not even noticed he was chilled till he felt that warmth. “You sleep.” 

Lucius brushed a hand over the thick harsh fur, the symbol of the Frontier Wolves. Lucius had not expected such generosity, and it warmed him as much as the the cloak. “But won’t you be cold?” Lucius asked, reluctantly moving to take Hilarion’s cloak off. 

“Na, na,” said Hilarion. “I’ll be on my feet. Rest.”

“But perhaps I should take - ”

“Don’t be too grateful,” Hilarion advised. “You’ll be standing the black watches of the night, my junior centenarius.” 

But Lucius, wrapped up in Hilarion’s warm cloak, was grateful that he would not spend the first watch staring into the swirling dark mist; and, protected by the warm shadows of the horses and the long, tall form of Hilarion in the mist, he fell asleep. 

***

He was cold enough when he woke in the dark of night. Dark indeed: for the fire had gone out. “Hilarion,” Lucius said, annoyed at the carelessness of the man. Had he gone to sleep on watch?

But as he sat up and the wolf’s head hood fell off his face, Lucius felt the chill mizzle rain spitting on his skin, and the annoyance gave way to concern. “Hilarion - ” he said again. 

“It rained,” Hilarion said. Lucius stumbled to his feet, looking for Hilarion. There: a darker shape against the black. Lucius held his hands out before him, moving toward that shape till he jabbed Hilarion in the nose. “Ow,” Hilarion said, and gave a brief laugh. 

His breath puffed cold against Lucius’s hand, and his stubbly cheeks were clammy. “You should have woken me,” Lucius said, and he opened the wolfskin Hilarion had lent him to wrap it around them both. Hilarion felt like a statue in Lucius’s arms, stiff and chill and slick with rain. He did not shiver, and it worried Lucius. “But perhaps it is as well you didn’t,” Lucius said, chafing Hilarion’s arms. “You are too cold to go to sleep like this.” 

Hilarion sighed, but he did not protest. The air was not so very cold; but men froze so much faster when they were wet, and Hilarion must know that. 

But if he knew it or not, Hilarion’s head drooped against Lucius’s shoulder. Still he did not shiver, but stood stiff with cold. Lucius gave him a shake. “Wake up now,” he said, and tried to inject some teasing into his voice so his own worry would not worry Hilarion. “Commander Gavros will kill me if I bring you back dead.”

“He’s not like that,” protested Hilarion. “He’ll know it was my own fault. He’s not...” But his voice dwindled and his head dropped again. 

“I was only teasing,” said Lucius, worried more than anything by the fact that Hilarion had not realized that. “Hilarion. You must stay awake till you warm a little.” 

Hilarion roused himself. He stomped his feet, tromping on Lucius’s toes in the process, and Lucius gritted his teeth and did not complain. “Talk to me,” Hilarion said.

Lucius rubbed Hilarion’s back, trying to get some warmth into him. “What about?” 

“Of - anything. People you know, places you have been. I have always wanted to travel. Where was your last post?” 

“Only in another part of Britain,” Lucius said. “Nowhere you would want to go. I do not think Commander Munnius would appreciate you.”

“I’ve heard stories about Munius,” Hilarion mused. “He sounds like a horror.”

“He is,” said Lucius. He would not normally have allowed himself to say anything so disrespectful, and for good reason. All the things Lucius had shut his mouth against in the weeks since his exile suddenly burst past his lips, and he said, words hard and fast as a torrent, “He was awful; he took any excuse or none to use the vine staff. At my old post, we would have blundered hopelessly in the fog rather than get back late, and half-hoped to drown in a bog, because at least then we would not have to face him.” 

Suddenly a shudder shook Hilarion’s body. He began to shiver uncontrollably, and Lucius, distracted, stopped. “No, go on,” said Hilarion, through chattering teeth. 

And Lucius, though he had thought he could never stand to talk about it, found that he wanted to tell Hilarion; that he no longer believed Hilarion might mock him. “He was beating one of our junior trumpeters, I don’t even remember why,” Lucius said. “Probably it was for nothing. Usually it was. The boy was not strong, and I told my commander he would beat him to death if he did not stop - ”

“In front of - ” Hilarion asked, and had to pause to get control of his chattering teeth. “You challenged your commander in front of everyone?” 

Lucius blushed in the dark, half-proud and half-ashamed. “There was no other time,” he said. “And it did no good; he finished the beating; and I don’t know if our trumpeter died or not, so soon after did Commander Munius send me here. He said, I would be centenarius among the Frontier Wolves, and see if I could keep them in line without the vine staff, if I thought - ”

And then Lucius cut himself off, because his throat was tightening up.

But it was as well that he was silent then, because in the sudden silence he heard the uneasiness of the horses, their soft snorts and the crackle of heather breaking beneath their shifting feet. 

“So you are a proper Frontier Wolf, after all,” Hilarion said. “Disobedient - ”

“Hush,” said Lucius, ears pricking as he listened. 

“Yes, disobedient,” insisted Hilarion. He nuzzled his cold face into Lucius’s neck, the tip of his nose against Lucius’s collarbone. “You have the seeming of a proper officer, as if we would have to teach you how to be a Frontier Wolf. But already you have the heart of - ”

“No, Hilarion, _listen_ ,” said Lucius. “The horses are uneasy. Do you hear...?” 

And Hilarion was silent and they both listened, though for a time they could hear nothing but the slowing chatter of Hilarion’s teeth. Then - a snuffling, in the dark.

The horses could smell it too: they shifted uneasily, nickering. “Hush!” said Lucius, and at last Hilarion fell silent. The heather whispered beneath padding paws. Lucius loosened his sword in its scabbard. “Pater noster,” Lucius murmured. He could feel his own heart pumping in his chest. “Qui es in caelis... ”

He had repeated the prayer so many times he did not need to think about it, only whisper it under his breath as he disentangled himself from the wolfskin cloak and returned it to Hilarion’s shoulders, where it belonged. His ears almost ached from straining at the silence. Perhaps this was foolish. If there were wolves, why did they not give tongue?

The horses’ hooves crunched on the bracken as they shifted uneasily. Lucius could smell their fear. He drew his sword. The hilt was cold and slick with rain. “Pater noster,” he began again. “Qui es in caelis...”

And the clouds in the heavens split. In the moonlight that spilled down Lucius saw the dim outline of the crouching wolf, dim as a chalk drawing against the darkness. It lifted its head, and for a moment all time stopped: the wolf’s eyes showing eerily in the moonlight, and Lucius’s sword flashed silver in that same moonlight as he raised it, half in salute, and almost as a warning. 

But he knew, with that odd knowing that sometimes comes, that the wolf would not heed the warning. It sprang from the heather, toward Hilarion’s horse, and Lucius sprang forward, and his sword caught the wolf at the throat in midair. Blood gushed down the blade, hot on Lucius’s hand. The wolf gave a strangled sound, and the force of its weight pulled Lucius to his knees as his wolf fell dead to the ground. 

Lucius stared at his moon-silver wolf, dead by his knees; and then his heart surged with fright, and he pulled his sword free and spun to his feet, sword raised as he looked for the rest of the pack. 

But Hilarion said gravely, “It was a lone wolf; that is why the pack did not give tongue.” 

Lucius lowered his sword slowly, though it was hard to let his guard down with the hackles still high on his neck. He wiped the blood off his blade among the wet bracken. 

“Let us look at your wolf,” said Hilarion, and he cast his arm around Lucius’s shoulder and dragged him down to crouch in the heather. They considered the wolf. A young male, it was, with fur silver-tipped by the moonlight. It gave him an unearthly look, as if his spirit had lingered rather than his corpse.

Lucius felt a moment of intense sadness looking at his wolf, who must only recently have left home, and died so swiftly at the end of a sword. The mizzle rain beaded silver on the fur. Lucius half-lifted a hand to touch it, then checked himself, half-afraid that the spirit-wolf would disappear beneath his hand. 

“Not a beauty,” Hilarion said. His voice brought Lucius back to himself, and looking at the wolf’s outer seeming, Lucius could only nod in sad agreement. Oh, his wolf was well enough, still fat from summer and full-furred for the approaching winter. But one of his ears was half-missing, and it would mark Lucius as different from the other Frontier Wolves: always different. 

The clouds closed together again, and Lucius’s wolf became only a darker shape in the darkness. He touched it then: the fur already chill with rain, but the body still warm beneath. “I’ll look odd enough on the practice grounds.” 

Hilarion put an arm around Lucius’s shoulder and gave him a shake. “But what a story you’ll have! Everyone else of the Frontier Wolves had to go hunting for their wolves, but yours, yours came to you.” 

“No, it only smelled the horses,” Lucius pointed out. 

“Hush,” said Hilarion, in the lofty tone that Lucius knew for teasing. “It knew you had come among the Frontier Wolves, and needed a wolfskin to live among your brothers, and it offered itself to you in welcome.” 

Lucius, despite himself, was smiling. “No one will believe the story, coming from you,” he said. 

Hilarion laughed, which surprised Lucius, who had only meant it for the truth. “Well, then, you must tell it,” Hilarion said. “I think they will believe it when you tell it: you have the countenance of truth.” And he kissed the side of Lucius’s face, or meant to; but in the darkness he missed Lucius’s cheek and grazed his mouth, instead. 

As so often happened, Lucius was not sure what he was supposed to do. After a moment Hilarion drew back. The clouds parted again, the moon spilling silver onto the heather; and on the horizon, Lucius could see the gray thread of approaching dawn. Hilarion’s face in the moonlight was narrow-eyed, a question beneath the laughter. 

“Pax?” Lucius hazarded, as a priest might tell his congregation to offer each other the kiss of peace.

Hilarion gave a laugh and unfolded himself to stand, stretching his arms toward the moon-silver sky; and, though Lucius knew he was not a believer, Hilarion repeated, “Pax.” He stretched out a hand to Lucius, pulling him back to his feet. “Come, the mists are gone; let us go back to Castellum. The pack must meet its new brother.”


End file.
